


The Ring is Little

by Inwitari_Turelie



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Loki comes by his bad habits honestly, Minor Character Death, Norse Myths & Legends, Odin is not the best role model, There are no therapists in Asgard, Until he dies, and by minor I mean we never meet him, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inwitari_Turelie/pseuds/Inwitari_Turelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the one where Odin tries to bond with Loki and it all goes rather wrong. On the upside, if there is one, in the long term it works out much worse for other people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ring is Little

For the record, the record in this case being the report Odin will have to make to his wife explaining all of this, Odin had had good intentions when he came up with the original idea and he really can’t be blamed for not foreseeing this. All he’d wanted was to have a nice day out with his son. As King his is busy more often than not and he knows he doesn’t pay either of his children the attention they deserve. At first he’d planned to take both his sons out but Thor had been invited out on a hunt with Sif’s family and he had not wanted to deprive his son of time with his friend. Honestly Thor was a tad young for such ventures, even if Thor he been invited to it more as a spectacle and something to learn from rather than with the belief the boy would take a part.  Yet it was no bad thing to take Loki out alone. His second son could be somewhat quiet and while he thanked the stars that at least one of his sons had some caution and tact the fact remained that Odin was never as sure of Loki’s emotions as he was Thor’s which was rather disquieting as a parent. That Thor had been invited out and not Loki was worrying too.  Admittedly he knew Sif’s family had hopes of a relationship developing between their daughter and Thor in the future, which he did not think would be a bad match, but he sometimes wondered if his younger son took after him in tending to gain allies rather than friends. How the rest of the realm seemed to think it was Loki who took after Frigga rather than Thor, with his more accepting nature and ability to entrance all he met, he would never know.  Still Odin hadn’t thought it too be too much of an issue, in fact he’d thought it might do his sons some good to develop some distance between them. It probably had not been good for them to spend so much time as each other's only playmates. 

As Hreidmar fastens the goldenred chains, which are inscribed with runes to restrain even the Aesir, around him Odin admits that perhaps Nidavillir had not been the _best_ choice of destinations. Yet Loki had seen much of Asgard already and was already fascinated by the workings of the Bifrost and in the other realms of Yggdrasil. Nidavillir had seemed perfect, they had no quarrel with Asgard, yet would allow his son to meet people less obeisant to their position and they could commission a present for Frigga. Of course Odin had not been fool enough to go alone but for his son and had taken his old friend Hoenir along but he had thought that was enough. He certainly did not expect any danger. Nidavillir was at peace and while the dwarves would not deprive anyone of their weapons they certainly took a very dim view on foreigners spilling blood in their realm.

Of course foreigners spilling _dwarven_ and _royal dwarven_ blood  at that as they had unwittingly done was even less acceptable. Of course it hadn’t been Loki’s fault and Odin would have to make sure he understood that. Once they got out of this mess that is. When they passed the Falls of Andvari Odin had been unsurprised to see no one around.  Andvari was notoriously reclusive and most of the other dwarves gave him a wide berth.  Loki had been happily babbling on to Hoenir about his training and Odin had seen no harm in suggesting Loki demonstrate how accurate his aim was. Perhaps he should have chosen another rock or a tree rather than an animal but the boy had been so excited to show he could hit a moving target. He hadn’t actually expected Loki to be quite so successful and had been rather proud of him for making the kill and the otter’s fur had made a fine trophy.  In fact he’d almost been looking forward to showing off he’s son’s skill to Hreidmar. The other King was always going on about his Regin and his unparalleled gift for smithery. Perhaps Odin should have looked at the animal for longer before picking it out as a target but you can’t expect every animal you come across to be a shapeshifter. Odin had never heard that the Dwarf King’s youngest son, Otr, was able to take the shape of an otter although he admits in hindsight that the name should perhaps have been something of a clue.

So of course it had gone wrong when they’d arrived at Hreidmar’s hall. The Dwarf King had taken one look at the otter’s fell, which Odin had made the mistaken of admitting was his son’s work, and the next moment he’d been screaming that they’d killed his son and they’d found themselves wrapped in chains. Odin and Hoenir probably could have moved faster and avoided being caught in this circumstance but Odin knew Loki couldn’t do the same and he was not going to abandon his son. Besides enough blood had been split, any more was to risk outright war. Also if the truth were told Odin _did_ feel guilty over the boy’s death. He’d seen too much war to cry over every death but even the idea of being in Hreidmar’s place and it being Thor or Loki whose skins had been presented to him was a strike of dread to the heart and he could not even imagine the anguish he would feel.  It did not help the situation now however.

“Do the fetters fret you Asgardian?” Hreidmar asks “My Regin wrought them and not even you, Odin Glapsviðr, will escape from them.”

“You cannot keep us here forever” Odin replied

“Once wergild for my son is paid you may go, and though I would suggest you do not expect hospitality in these lands too soon, that will be the end of it in line with both your laws and mine”

“And how do you expect us to pay wergild from these chains?”

“Does not your guardian Heimdall see all? Do you expect me to believe his gaze rests elsewhere than on the Lord of the Aesir?”

“You believe Heimdall will trust what he sees from your halls? Hreidmar, none of us are foolish enough to believe they are built this way simply for the aesthetics, your people are renowned for their artifice and craft. Let one of us go to Asgard to authorise this ransom”

“What you say seems wise but I am not fool enough to let you go. You said it was your son who stroke the blow thus it seems fitting he should be the one to collect the wergild”

Odin had thought Loki had looked scared before but that was nothing to the look of pure panic that crossed his face at that moment. If his son had been on the verge of crying before, then now for the first time Odin wonders if Loki’s resolve will break.

“Off you go, boy.” says Hreidmar as he releases Loki’s chains.

Loki looks at Odin uncertainly so he nods at his son in encouragement. Loki seems to gain whatever reassurance he needs as he almost runs out the door.

Hreidmar seems to have decided everything’s been settled for his satisfaction for the moment as he leaves the two of them to join his son Fafnir by the hearth.

“So now we wait.” Hoenir says

Odin looked over at his friend “Well, yes. I’ll note I did not hear you saying anything.”

“You have always done all the talking; I saw no reason to break that grand tradition now, least of all given our relative positions.”

“Sometimes I do not know why I bother to bring you along.”

“Come on, this is definitely not the _worst_ situation we’ve been in”

“No, but I hadn’t brought _Loki_ along on any of those. And I wasn’t King”

“True”

“Frigga’s going to kill me”

“Well, that would be treason”

“Not helping”

“Sorry” Hoenir pauses “do you think any of his other sons are shapeshifters?”

“What?”

“Well, we do _not_ want this to happen again”

“I was rather planning to simply avoid hunting in Nidavellir”

“Probably wise.  I still think there’s something about Fafnir although Regin seems a bit too solid for any sort of skin changing.”

“It’s of little use to us now. All we can do is wait for Loki to call Heimdall and return to Asgard for the Wergild” a thought occurred to Odin and he sighed “Not that this is going to go down well with the council”

“You believe Loki has gone to call Heimdall?”

“Why in Yggdrasil would he do anything else?”

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a bright lad and I like him but, well, Loki is very much your son”

“I’m not sure what you mean to imply?”

“Let me speak honestly, sire”

“I was rather under the impression you were doing that. Go on though, you know full well that I don’t bring you around to kowtow to me.”

“If you had killed the son of the ruler of another realm and Bor was held as hostage would a younger version of you have returned to Asgard and asked for money out of the treasury to pay?”

“We’re doomed.”

In fact they only had to wait til the next day before Loki returned  dragging a rather large net behind him filled with gold. As he looks upon the gold Odin becomes surer and surer that the gold did not originate from Asgard.  He cannot suppress the warm rush of pride he feels in Loki.

“Well, you did say he was my son”

Of course the problem remains of where exactly Loki had acquired the gold. It seems to truly exist rather than being the product of any sort of illusion, which should have been beyond Loki’s abilities anyway. Yet his eye is drawn to one ring and as he gazes upon it he sees that on top of some enchantment he cannot yet fathom the ring carries a rather nasty curse.

As Hreidmar releases them from their chains Odin surreptitiously takes the ring from the pile. He is half-tempted to leave it there, but he has already caused the death of the man’s _son,_ that is enough for anyone.  The dwarves may be talented crafters but this curse was not one easily removed though Odin feels sure he himself could do so with time.

Yet again however Odin finds his intentions thwarted.

“What have you hidden? You are greedy indeed to begrudge me part of my own son’s wergild” says Hreidmar.

Odin sighs. In the end one could only do so much to prevent  fate.

“Take it then, Hreidmar, but I warn you that though you have received a ransom worthy of gods, take care with this ring. There is a seed of evil inside of it”

The other King simply glares at him before telling them to begone.  Odin grabbs his friend and his son and does so since he certainly has no desire to tarry. He thinks he has probably memorised anything of interest in during the night and their time in chains.

“Father” Loki looks up at him uncertainly “Why would he take the ring if it could doom his house?”

“He is angry, Loki, people often do not think clearly when they are angry. Besides we have given him little reason to trust us.”

“It’s my fault, isn’t it? I killed his son.”

“You could not have known Loki. The wergild has been paid. It is over.”

“Your father’s done worse” Hoenir adds

Odin glares at his friend but thankfully Loki looks unconvinced. Now all there is to do is to walk to somewhere it is acceptable to call the Bifrost down to. It wouldn’t do to do any more damage here.

Although Odin realises the question still remains of where exactly Loki found the gold.

“Loki”

“Yes Father”

“How did you ransom us?”

“Um, well” the boy mumbles something quite impossible to hear.

“Speak up, Loki.”

“I was, unsure of what to do, and I sort of found myself near the shore”

Odin starts. The Hall of Hreidmar is not _far_ from the shore, one could easily make it there and back in a night, as Loki apparently did, but it isn’t a short walk and especially not for a scared young boy by himself. Nevermind whatever Loki had been thinking to head in that direction anyway.

“and I came across Lady Rán”

Odin supposes that Lord Ægir’s wife was not the worse person Loki could have come across. Their family is quite friendly with Frigga’s after all. Of course that doesn’t mean he’ll be able to get out of repaying them for whatever help they gave Loki. He really really hopes it wasn’t their gold Loki paid with.

“And she asked me what was wrong, so I told her what had happened”

And there goes Odin’s hope of keeping this quiet.

“And she lent me her net”

Which Odin notes  his son still has with him, now empty of anything. He’d better make sure it was returned.

“And told me to go fish in the Falls of Andvari with it. Which I thought was a bit strange but she didn’t seem like she was trying to deceive me. So I returned to the falls and cast my net and then I got a fish but lo, it was no fish but a dwarf. He changed back when I caught him you see. Father are _all_ dwarves shapechangers? None of the books I’ve read have mentioned it.”

“No, Loki, no more than there are amongst the Aesir”

“So there people in Asgard who can?”

“Yes.”

“But then how can we go hunting?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that child. Now you had just caught Andvari, for I presume that was who was.”

“Yes, Father, Andvari son of Oin he named himself when he demanded release, so I demanded ransom from him to do so as Hreidmar had asked you. He gave up his fortune hidden in the cave behind the falls oddly easily actually. Except he tried to hide the ring, you warned Hreidmar from, and when I picked it up he cursed it.”

Odin looks at his son in worry. He had not realised the curse was so new. Loki seems to bear no ill-affects though.

“What did he say?”

“He said the ring would bring woe to all who possessed it, that it would be the bane of two families and would slay seven princes.”

“And you still took it? What if you were one of those princes, your brother another and that one of those families were ours”

Odin notices Loki bits his lip before replying

“Well once he’d cursed it I thought since the fates were set anyway, I might as well take it anyway and just make sure not to possess it for long.”

Odin wishes he could pretend he had no idea where Loki gets this recklessness from but unfortunately that is not the case.  To think he had thought Loki the more cautious of his two sons. Still, wrong though it may be Odin is rather glad Hreidmar claimed the ring now, he will not allow such a fact to befall his house while he still lives.

Soon Odin feels safe to call down the Bifrost. When they arrive Heimdall thankfully refrains from commenting on their trip except to warn Odin that Frigga is wishes to talk immediately to him on his return and the Queen was quite keen to stress immediately. Odin suppresses a stab of fear. His wife cannot be too angry surely. It’s not as if he let Loki get permanently harmed.

When they arrive back they’re greeted by a rather over-excited Thor, which confuses Odin for a moment since he was under the impression Thor would still away on his trip, before he shrugs the confusion away. He has Frigga to placate, so he leaves Loki with Thor. He’s sure some servant will run him a bath and get him some clean clothes, so he’s ready for dinner later.

The last he hears of his son before he is too far down the corridor is Thor’s overexcited voice asking “Is it true you killed someone Loki?  It’s as if you are a warrior already!”  

 

**Author's Note:**

> So despite my best attempts to mix mythology with the film obviously the timeline doesn't match up given all the myths were Thor and Loki are adults seem to exist when they're children in the movieverse. I've tried to incorporate comics canon where I can, hence the dwarves living in Nidavellir but I realise it's highly AU to that otherwise but then the film is already quite different anyway. What small part of the saga is referenced is mostly based upon Tolkien's interpretation of it, the poem The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún simply because I have that to hand. 
> 
> Ægir is a Sea God and since Frigga's comics equivalent is the daughter of Freyr and thus granddaughter of Njord another sea deity I liked the idea of their being a connection between their familes.


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